Report: Hookers in NYC Still Being Screwed By Court System

NEW YORK CITY—It was just a year ago that New York's Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman created the concept of the Human Trafficking Intervention Court (HTIC), whose objective was "to promote a just and compassionate resolution to cases involving those charged with prostitution—treating these defendants as trafficking victims, likely to be in dire need of medical treatment and other critical services," even though a great many of those busted are simply ordinary American citizens who choose to make all or part of their income by renting their bodies. Nonetheless, "The HTICs mandate people charged with prostitution-related misdemeanors, including survivors of trafficking as well as people who trade sex by choice and circumstance, to participate in programming offered by local nonprofits as well as programs run by the courts themselves," and after completing the program, the pros can get their records sealed and expunged—if they aren't rearrested within six months. "People engaged in the sex trades are studied by the criminal justice system and profiled by media and police all the time," said Audacia Ray, executive director of the Red Umbrella Project (RedUP). "It’s really valuable for us to turn that around and examine the systems that are criminalizing us." And now, thanks to a report from RedUP titled Criminal, Victim, or Worker?, we've got some idea how that court is working out: Not that well. For one thing, RedUP notes that while the HTICs consider many arrested prostitutes to be "victims of exploitation," it points out that "no other charge, whether it be domestic violence, kidnapping, labor exploitation or sexual assault, calls for the person being exploited to be arrested." "Decreasing the incarceration of people charged with prostitution ... is a good step forward," the report continues. "However, as long as people who are in the sex trades by coercion, economic circumstance, or choice are 'rescued' through arrest and mandated services, they will continue to be re-victimized by the police and the courts." (One might also note that those who are prostitutes by choice, whether because of economics or simply because they're good at it, are particularly victimized by the system, whose attempts to "rehabilitate" them amounts to a sort of brainwashing.) But there are still more problems with the system, including the fact that black people in Brooklyn have been disproportionately targeted for "loitering for the purposes of engaging in prostitution" arrests, the number of court-hired interpreters for non-English speaking defendants is woefully inadequate, and the programs which defendants are required to complete are similarly inadequate, if not laughable, with the providers sometimes offering "art therapy" and "yoga" in place of one-on-one or group therapy or "life skills workshops"—which many of those who have chosen prostitution for a profession have little or no need for. The report then goes on to describe in detail how the system works, from the moment of arrest through the various required court appearances, plea bargaining, and how poorly some of the programs that prostitutes must attend in order to qualify for "adjournment [in] contemplation of dismissal" (ACD) actually work. It also raises questions regarding whether police are targeting transgendered prostitutes and/or sex workers of particular ethnic groups. "The sex trade is an often sexist, racist, transphobic industry—but the policing of people in the sex trades is all of these things, too," the report concludes. "Sex work provides economic opportunities for people who may have difficulty finding other forms of employment or for whom informal employment is ideal. The extent to which people chose to work in the sex industry is debatable, as is the idea that job choice more broadly exists under capitalism. "Sex work is work," the report continues. "Like other forms of work, it is undesirable work for many. Unlike other forms of work, the main form of regulation of the sex trade in the United States is through the policing of its workers. The path through the criminal justice system ... may serve as an intervention for some defendants, but it does not lead to greater economic and personal empowerment for sex workers on the whole." The full report can be read here. An executive summary of the report is here.